About

I just secured this domain with WordPress and will be constructing as time allows.

For anyone who is curious, this blog / site will be my way to dig into, disassemble and put together a new paradigm of education. I am a professor of writing at the college-level and am becoming increasingly frustrated and fearful of the way education at all levels is heading. We need a new paradigm. We need to find ways to instill the love for learning into all, and this is why I have titled this blog Teach the Willing. I am getting more and more into the idea that we need to just let some of the flock go. If young people don’t want to learn in the current environment, we should not force them into a broken system. Public education is and/or is headed to becoming government funded daycare rather than a learning environment. We need to get control back to those who should be in control: the learners. The factory model does not work. Rigor is suffering and the level of readiness in my classes drops each and every year. Failure is stigmatized rather than embraced as one of, if not the most, important aspects of learning. My hope is that through this blog, I will find a community of like-minded thinkers who want to flush the system, dissent and start something entirely new. Too many are just theorizing and not acting. If we truly believe, it is time to stop talking and act.

In many ways, I want to find a way to educate the “willing,” and I want to do this on an economic and attitude-based scale. I have a unique skill-set, and I am happy to share and grow with anyone who wants my help, but my knowledge and pedagogical strategies have been developing for years. I have two degrees: a BA in Elementary Education and an MA in Writing and Literature. These are only a mere part of me. I been all over the world and am also an athlete and nutrition specialist. With all of this in mind, I can provide remote education or I can provide face-to-face education, but my caveat is that I no longer want to teach to the forced learner. I want to Teach the Willing.

The sliding scale I refer to is how I want to break down the current factory model. I want to provide quality education at various levels to those who want to learn. I can teach kids. I can teach young adults. I can teach college-level students. I can teach adults who have always just wanted to learn to write and think. Though my services will have to have a fee, I will allow this fee to slide. If you are financially challenged, I can work with you. Let’s talk. The other way the fee scale will slide is with attitude. For the open and “willing” learner, the fee will be reasonable. If I encounter resistance and attitude from the learner, the price will increase.

Let’s all figure out a way to break down the factory model and walk into a new paradigm of teaching and learning that is focused on the learner and the situations that surround those who are willing but just don’t want to sit on the conveyer belt and be programed by a long broken system of conformity and testing that measures the lowest common denominator. Let’s grow from within and create a new future of thoughtful and focused growth and progress.

Think. Explore. Experiment. Look deep within.

These are just some beginning steps, but I think with a real community of enthusiastic dissenters and willing learners, the wall can be toppled and a new paradigm can grow organically from the soul of true desire to learn.

When I have more time, I will revise this statement…

For now, look around, listen and don’t accept what we all know is not working.

Note: I know my identity can be uncovered, but for now, I will remain as anonymous as possible. Reasons for this also withheld. My apologies.

If you need to know more about me and my “accredited” credentials, feel free to email me: